RU Stats: December 2012

If you are saying that any team should have a Steel-type or use Hail just to counter one Pokemon [Druddigon] then yes, it is broken. Metagames should not be that centralised, especially in the lower tiers. Teams in RU use quite a few NU or PU Pokemon, and I don't want to see that changing in favour of a more OU-like structure where a third of teams have a specific Pokemon.

Druddigon's defensive stats are actually quite solid, and it is hard to find a 1HKO'er that is not resisted by Dragon.

If you are saying that any team should have a Steel-type or use Hail just to counter one Pokemon [Druddigon] then yes, it is broken. Metagames should not be that centralised, especially in the lower tiers. Teams in RU use quite a few NU or PU Pokemon, and I don't want to see that changing in favour of a more OU-like structure where a third of teams have a specific Pokemon.

Druddigon's defensive stats are actually quite solid, and it is hard to find a 1HKO'er that is not resisted by Dragon.

I rest my case.

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That said Druddigon is not broken. Very few things will 1HKO it, and Druddigon will almost always get at least one KO if you don't carry strong Choice Attackers or Steelix/Escava, but it will also be 2HKOd by most combinations of attacks you will encounter. Druddigon is not used extremely frequently (except this week in SPL) and the metagame does not centralize around it at all, else we would be seeing steels and druddigon skyrocket, and fwg cores drop. This has not been the case however.

Druddigon is a great Pokemon, but has significant flaws, and is no where near suspect worthy.

If you are saying that any team should have a Steel-type or use Hail just to counter one Pokemon [Druddigon] then yes, it is broken. Metagames should not be that centralised, especially in the lower tiers. Teams in RU use quite a few NU or PU Pokemon, and I don't want to see that changing in favour of a more OU-like structure where a third of teams have a specific Pokemon.

Druddigon's defensive stats are actually quite solid, and it is hard to find a 1HKO'er that is not resisted by Dragon.

I rest my case.

Click to expand...

There's plenty of Steels in the tier, and most of them are fairly useful. It's not a serious burden keeping one of them on your team.

Druddigon is similar in a way to Nidoqueen with how it's slow for an offensive mon (very, very slow), but also bulky enough to tank a shot with ease. Plus, where as Nidoqueen has a base 75 special attack (it's lowest stat) to abuse sheer force and life orb, Druddigon has a massive 120 base attack and the coveted sheer force life orb combo. So why isn't it completely dominant and already banned to UU? Quite simply, Nidoquen has the perfect move pool to abuse Sheer Force while Druddigon doesn't. All of Nidoqueen's attacks are boosted and about 95 bp moves, while Druddigons dragon moves have no boost, plus it's only real moves to abuse it include the rather weak elemental fangs and other odd ball moves Like Rock Climb. Plus it's horrid speed means it's very difficult to not out speed it, meaning that the worst case scenario is it takes a shot and ko's in return, the gets killed by the next mon. Not broken at all I think.